The E-zwich payment system has exposed four avenues of possible double payments that could have occurred in January alone.

The E-zwich is the payment system being used to pay National Service personnel.

These identified loopholes are avenues that service personnel and some officials of the National Service Scheme used to take advantage of in the past to defraud the system.

However,  the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS) has uncovered the loopholes with the payment system. 

Some 2,949 people were not paid their service allowance in January due to the four main anomalies discovered. The amount involved is GH¢1,032,150.

Out of the total, 1,636 were not paid because they had no unique serial numbers (USN), otherwise known as e-zwich numbers, 443 were not paid because of duplicate USNs, 126 not paid because of duplicate National Service ID numbers and 744 not paid because of transitional errors in their names.

Greater-Accra topped the list of affected persons with a total of 1,179, followed by Ashanti Region with 934, then Eastern Region with 219 cases; Central Region, 178; Brong-Ahafo, 130; Volta Region, 116; Western Region, 64; Northern Region, 64; Upper East, 53 and Upper West, 12.

General Manager of IT at GhIPSS, Kojo Ntim told Adom News whereas they could not conclude that the anomalies were deliberately intended to defraud the system, they could be possible fraud avenues.

 “We can say that in the past these loopholes would have been avenues for double payments and wrong payments but because of the e-zwich we can now prevent some of these things,” Kojo Ntim said.

Director of the National Service Secretariat (NSS), Dr. Kpessa Whyte, said e-zwich has clearly flawed the former payment system used by the National Service Scheme.

“This shows that it is time for all civil servants in the country to be paid through e-zwich so that the problem of ghost names will be eliminated for good”, he said.

Dr. Whyte is urging all affected service personnel to go back to their respective NSS district offices and rectify their records so that they can be paid.

He however warned that NSS would soon employ the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to do random head counts from time to time to ensure that service personnel are at post.

“We will also be monitoring the e-zwich system to see where people load their moneys. If we notice that you were posted to Tamale but you keep loading you money in Accra we will investigate you and find out if you are really at post,” he said.